Here’s your White History Month(s), Asshole

So, it’s Black History Month again, which means that it’s time for whiny racists to renew their annual cry of, “Why isn’t there a White History Month? Isn’t that reverse racism, which is really just racism? You know, whites are actually this country’s second class citizens.” And so on.

There are two responses that you normally hear, both of which I am sympathetic to. The snarky one is that every other month is basically white history month. The earnest one is that we need a black history month because the history and contributions of African Americans are still underrepresented in the public consciousness when compared with the canonical history of the Washingtons and Roosevelts.

But there is another, less snarky version of the first answer, which is that there are, in fact, numerous recognized history and heritage months celebrating the history and contributions of people who are by and large subsets of “white.”

Hispanic Heritage month is also September 15 – October 15. From a legal perspective, “Hispanic” is an ethnic identity that is orthogonal to race, so that you can be “White Hispanic” or “Black Hispanic” when you’re filling out your equal opportunity questionnaire. So, Hispanic Heritage Month might count as a sort of partial White History Month. I’ve left it out of the list, though, since I suspect that most people who are complaining about the lack of a White History Month don’t mean to include Hispanics when they say “White.” Similarly, Women’s History Month (March).

In addition, you can find, at the state and local level, History Months and Weeks for Russians, Swedes, Dutch, Czechs, and on and on.

For the White Survivalists out there, there’s even a National Preparedness Month (September).

One thought on “Here’s your White History Month(s), Asshole”

“[M]ost people who are complaining about the lack of a White History Month” would also be outraged at the notion that Arab-American Heritage Month has anything to do with them. Some of them wouldn’t be too keen on Jewish-American Heritage Month either. And some of those Greeks and Italians are a bit on the swarthy side…